Jansen, better known by his stage name Danté, was a prominent magician / illusionist / performer in America during the golden age of vaudevillian stage shows. In some estimations, he was the last great magician of this era.
Jansen was born in Copenhagen. He and his family moved to Minnesota when he was six. For reasons that we could possibly explore later, the northern mid-west has long been a destination for Scandinavian immigration.
He started doing magic professionally at 16. He grew up to cut women in half.
Adam Oehlenschläger was a Danish poet and playwright. In 1819 he wrote the lyrics for today's Danish National Anthem, "Der er et Yndigt Land".
Oehlenschläger was born in Vesterbro to a Schleswig father who was an organist and later the keeper of the royal palace in Frederiksberg and a mother that the Wiki page describes as "German by extraction". That sounds fairly ominous. The mother probably didn't enjoy it that much as she suffered from depression throughout most of her adult life and died before Oehlenschläger became - as Esaias Tegn crowned him - the "Nordic Poet-king". This was an era where poets from feuding countries could praise one another to bring the countries closer together.
Anyway, Oehlenschläger grew up with no formal schooling until he was twelve - he was taught to read and write, but that was about it. At around the time he was twelve, Adam was strolling around Frederiksberg Have staring dreamily at the canals and "attracted the notice" of fellow poet Edvard Storm. Ah the days when a 42 year old man could talk poetry and Scandinavian mythology with a 12 year old he just happened to meet in the public gardens.
Oehlenschläger tried his hand at acting, but was mostly a failure. After the First Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 he set his focus on poetry and new romanticism. Not this kind of new romanticism.
His plays and other writings drew Danes back to the poetry and religion of their Nordic ancestors, and reinvigorated romantic / nostalgic feelings about those forebearers.
He wrote the lyrics to "Der er et Yndigt Land", today the National Anthem of Denmark.
Der er et yndigt land, det står med brede bøge nær salten østerstrand Det bugter sig i bakke, dal, det hedder gamle Danmark og det er Frejas sal
Der sad i fordums tid de harniskklædte kæmper, udhvilede fra strid Så drog de frem til fjenders mén, nu hvile deres bene bag højens bautasten
Det land endnu er skønt, thi blå sig søen bælter, og løvet står så grønt Og ædle kvinder, skønne mø'r og mænd og raske svende bebo de danskes øer
Hil drot og fædreland! Hil hver en danneborger, som virker, hvad han kan! Vort gamle Danmark skal bestå, så længe bøgen spejler sin top i bølgen blå
Roughly / metrically translated...
There is a lovely land with spreading, shadybeeches Near salty eastern beach Its hills and valleys gently fall, its ancient name is Denmark, And it is Freya's hall
There in the ancient days sat armoured Vikings rested Between their bloody frays Then they went forth the foe to face, now found in stone-set barrows, Their final resting place
This land is still as fair, the sea is blue around it, And peace is cherished there Strong men and noble women still uphold their country's honour With faithfulness and skill
This is today's shortened version - the orignal had twelve verses. At football matches and what not, the song is further shortened.
Der er et yndigt land, det står med brede bøge nær salten østerstrand Det bugter sig i bakke, dal, det hedder gamle Danmark og det er Frejas sal
Vort gamle Danmark skal bestå, så længe bøgen spejler sin top i bølgen blå
I learned about Reinhard at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. We'll talk more about that tomorrow or possibly Saturday.
Today, I'd like to talk about the Astronaut / Physicist / Tunneler / Pilot / Philosopher, Reinhard Furrer.
He grew up in what is now Austria but was then Germany. He studied Physics in Berlin and in 1964 helped to build "Tunnel 57" which allowed 57 East Germans to flee to the West.
He had this to say about it.
"... doing something to fight the injustice of the Wall was a matter of character. People did not want to sit by while that kind of injustice went on. We wanted people to realize that in doing what we did we were embodying the conscience of West Germans. We were defending moral values. It was very much an act of humanity. I would do the same again today. I expect that from every German."
He went into space as a member of the last successful mission of the Challenger. This was a Spacelab mission. He is the third German to enter space.
There were many awesome quotes from Reinhard at the museum and I unfortunately recorded none of them. You have no idea how much I wish I had recorded the actual quotes. They were awesome. I have this.
"I would have liked to be asked, when I arrived back, what it had felt like to be out there, how I had felt in the midst of all that glittery blackness orbiting the Earth like a star."
Painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author Asger Jorn was born in Århus, Denmark on the 3rd of March in 1914. Århus is the København of Jutland and is Denmark's second largest urban center.
Both of Jorn's parents were teachers and devout Christians. His father - a fundementalist - died in a car crash when Asger was 12. Asger contracted tuberculosis at 15 and would palindromically contract it again at 51. At 16, Jorn enrolled in a teacher training college, despite the fact that he already had an interest in painting. While at Vinthers Seminarium, Asger became more and more interested in philosophy and art. He also joined the Danish Communist Party.
After college Jorn left for Paris to study / further evolve. He began to move away from figurative art towards the more abstract art he would be known for.
During WWII, Jorn participated in the Danish communist resistance movement against German occupation. In a later post we may get on to the occupation of Denmark, but let's just say that the Germans saw Danes as brother-people and treated them - even in occupation - as such.
With Guy Debord he participated in the early artistic years of the Situationist International. Throughout his life, Jorn remained a revolution-driven-philosopher, railing against capitalism and its effects. In 1964 he was awarded a Guggenheim Award. This was - by telegram - his response.
GO TO HELL BASTARD--STOP--REFUSE PRIZE--STOP--NEVER ASKED FOR IT--STOP--AGAINST ALL DECENCY MIX ARTIST AGAINST HIS WILL IN YOUR PUBLICITY--STOP--I WANT PUBLIC CONFIRMATION NOT TO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN YOUR RIDICULOUS GAME.
Jorn's work is varied. Here is my favorite piece from the Lousiana.
Morten "The Great Dane" Andersen is the leading scorer in NFL history. In his 25 seasons as a placekicker, he made the Pro Bowl 7 times and was named All-Pro 3 times. Next to George Blanda, he is the second oldest player to play in an NFL game.
Andersen was born in Copenhagen, but grew up in Struer, the home of Bang & Olufsen. He was a star athlete in gymnastics, track, and soccer. At 17, he left Denmark for Indianapolis as part of the Youth for Understanding foreign exchange program. For fun, he gave kicking a football a go. He immediately became the varsity placekicker for Ben Davis High School.
With only one season of north-american-football-style kicking under his belt, Michigan State offered Andersen a scholarship and he accepted. Today he is the Michigan State all-time leader in field goals, extra points, and scoring. His 63 yard field goal against tOSU is the longest in Big Ten history. He was elected to the MSU Hall of Fame in 2011.
The New Orleans Saints drafted Andersen in the 4th round of the 1982 NFL Draft. He is the all-time leading scorer for the Saints. Upon being released by the team following the 1994 season, Andersen signed with the Atlanta Falcons. He is the all-time leading scorer for the Falcons.
Morten Andersen holds the NFL record for games played, points scored, and field goals made.
He is often confused with Gary Anderson, the South African placekicker with which he shares a Matrix-like-frighteningly-coincidence-y career.
There are a number of interesting coincidences between Andersen and former NFL placekicker Gary Anderson. Anderson and Andersen have nearly identical last names, were born within a year of one another outside the United States (Anderson was born in South Africa), came to the United States as teenagers, had long and successful NFL careers throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and hold first or second place in a number of NFL records for scoring, field goals, and longevity. Their overall accuracy is also nearly identical; their career percentage being within .5 % of each other on both FGs and PATs. Also, Anderson missed a field goal in the 1998 NFC Championship Game for the Minnesota Vikings before Andersen kicked his winning kick, both from the same distance as well.
And all of this reminds me of this. Boo Green Bay!
First life, then spaces, then buildings - the other way around never works.
Jan Gehl is an architect and urban planner best known for his concepts regarding the gradual incremental redesign of modern cities to make them more livable.
In 1960 Gehl earned his Masters of Architecture from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1966 he received a grant for "studies of the form and use of public spaces". The resulting work became Life Between Buildings, his treatise on the use of public space and the role it plays in enriching the lives of the people who use it.
The Copenhagen of the 50s and 60s was a very different place than it is today. Like many cities, it had become congested by automobile traffic. Today, one of the main, tourist or otherwise, attractions in Copenhagen is the Strøget, an open air pedestrian only shopping district.Below are pictures of the Strøget before pedestrianization.
Here's a picture from 1968, just two years after pedestrianization.
And here is what it looks like today.
Here's nyhavn in 1966 and today.
And lastly, here's a shot of the Gl Strand before and after pedestrianization.
Today, Copenhagen is a city dominated by pedestrians and bicycles. In many ways it has become Gehl's model for urban re-development worldwide.
David Byrne's book - yes that David Byrne - Bicycle Diaries was the inspiration for this post. I haven't finished it yet, but it has been a fun read. In it, he recounts several of his travel experiences, focusing on the people, composition, layout of the cities visited and, obviously, his cycling in them. In part, the chapter on Berlin pushed me to choose it as a travel destination. He has this to say about the modern city and the people who choose to inhabit it.
Our cities are alive, like us they have both a deep intelligence that guides them and a physical presence. They're both a brain and a body. They are our neural networks writ large, our psychological drives made physical, and by changing and fixing our cities we are reflecting similar changes going on inside. When our built world does not accurately correspond to our vision, to our physiology, and to our innate psychology, we suffer and feel alienated, as if we are inhabiting the wrong body or mind. When our surroundings are more aligned with us, we fit better, more comfortably. The rewards are immense and wide-ranging. But mostly it's just more fun.
I feel like a complete poser writing this post without yet owning / riding a bicycle. The word yet is key to my salvation.
Thanks to the following sources, inspirations.
- This article from NovaTerra. I grabbed much info and the Gl Strand pic.
- And, as mentioned above, David Byrne's, Bicycle Diaries. It's a compilation of different blog posts, journal entries, etc and as such is a little haphazard, but it's fun. He's sometimes a bit heavy handed, but I've enjoyed it.
To end, I apologize to the actual urban planners / architects in the audience for my amateurish look at the subject. I'm sure there are many more interesting things to say about Gehl and his work. Mostly, I find the concept fascinating. Our cities should be places where we actually live and breath, not just places where we work or visit on the occasional weekend.
Queen Margrethe II was born to Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Ingrid of Denmark in 1940. Upon her father's death, she became Queen in 1972. She is the first female monarch of Denmark since 1412.
On her name, specifically the "Þórhildur"
She was named Margrethe after her maternal grandmother, Alexandrine after her paternal grandmother, and Ingrid after her mother. Since her paternal grandfather, the then-reigning King Christian X, was also the King of Iceland, and Margrethe until 1944 was an Icelandic princess, the Princess was as a tribute to the people of Iceland given an Icelandic name, Þórhildur (Thorhildur).
In 1953, Danish parliament passed a new act of succession that granted female heirs succession to the throne - this had been impossible due to laws enacted in the 1850s.
At the age of 18, Margrethe was granted a seat on the Council of State in order to prepare her for her future role. The role of Queen is largely symbolic - the royal family has no role in Danish politics. It serves mainly to meet foreign dignitaries and provide a unifying theme for the Danish people. The queen does not - by her personal choice - vote in elections.
Margrethe is an accomplished artist and designer. Her illustrations were used - under the pseudonym Ingahild Grathmer - for the Danish translation of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
In 2006, the royal court announced that she would no longer smoke in public.
Denmark has steadily become an increasingly secular society. Here is what she had to say about Islam in 2005.
We are being challenged by Islam these years. Globally as well as locally. There is something impressive about people for whom religion imbues their existence, from dusk to dawn, from cradle to grave. There are also Christians who feel this way. There is something endearing about people who give themselves up completely to their faith. But there is likewise something frightening about such a totality, which also is a feature of Islam. A counterbalance has to be found, and one has to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on you. For there are some things for which one should display no tolerance. And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction.
Hans Christian Hagedorn is best known for founding Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium (Nordisk Insulin laboratory) and later creating the diabetic treatment NPH Insulin. Today NPH remains the most widely sold insulin preparation in the world.
Hagedorn was born in Copenhagen on the 6th of March in 1888. His father owned a massive steamboat and tooled around with the young Hans, moving freight and also providing education in some sort of floating teaching institute.
By the age of seven, Hans was hooked on science. He even went so far to explore the science of examining dog, um, excrement with his sister. Fun times.
He earned a medical degree and - at one point - assisted the great Niels Bohr's father, Christian.
By 1918, after a series of personal problems followed by stability in western Denmark, Hans had developed - with pharmacist Birger Norman Jensen - a method for measuring glucose levels. It would be from heretofore referred to as the Hagedorn-Norman Jensen method and would be used nearly exclusively for the next forty years.
Hagedorn continued to study blood sugar and in 1936 - with Norman Jensen - patented NPH, a long lasting insulin treatment for diabetic patients.
In 1989, Nordisk merged with Novo Industri and became today's Novo Nordisk.
Hagedorn himself developed diabetes and had this to say about it
The sweetness of life gradually reduces. All that is left is renunciation and the consolation of religion.
He died from the complications of Parkinson's disease in 1971.
As always, I apologize for any errors - let me know and I will change them as need be.
Additionally, I am not in any way, shape, or space a representative of Novo Nordisk or its subsidiaries. All of these things are my thoughts / stolen history. Thanks.!
In the pantheon of Danish designers, Verner Panton is perhaps the most influential furniture and interior designer of the 20th century. He is best known for his innovative work with plastics.
Panton studied architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Art and from 1950-1952 assisted Arne Jacobsen on a variety of projects. One such project was Jacobsen's "Ant" chair. The chair was commissioned by Novo Nordisk, for use in the company canteen, and was designed to be light, stable, and easily stackable. This was the result.
It was Jacobsen's research in new technologies and materials that most stoked Panton's curiosity and future design asthetic.
After leaving Jacobsen, Panton went on to design first the Bachelor and then the Tivoli chair.
It was the Cone chair that truly made Panton "known".
This chair caused a stir internationally and allowed Panton to experiment further with both materials and design.
He is, most likely, best known for this chair, from 1967.
There was a Simpsons episode - which I sadly cannot locate / remember - where Springfield Elementary received new chairs. Chairs specifically designed to make the students "pay attention". It was appropriately uncomfortable. I imagine that the Panton chair is not dissimilar.
During this period he experimented further with what he termed "total" environments. With this concept he wanted to build a modern living space that better suited the time and space and inhabitants.
He also went on to do things like this. For Bayer. On boats.
Edit : these styles / rooms / videos had to be the inspiration for Navin Johnson when he decided to build his mansion. Sophisticated!
Interest waned in Panton's works throughout the 70s and 80s. His work earned more attention in the 90s and he was invited to do an exhibition in Copenhagen in 1998, but died 12 days before its opening.
Thanks to the following excellent sources.
- Design Museum - an excellent biography. Much of the details were grabbed here
- Apartment Therapy - great pictures and more info.
- Wanken - more great pictures of "Visiona"
- And obviously the Wiki
Christiansen was born in Filskov, a small village in central Jutland. As a young man, he trained as a carpenter and joiner and went on to ply his trade in the construction industry of neighboring Billund.
When the depression hit Denmark, construction projects became more and more scarce. It was at this point that Christiansen began building and selling small wooden odds and ends - step ladders, ironing boards, and yes, wooden toys.
By 1934, Christiansen's new company had grown dramatically, with the focus shifting to wooden pull toys similar to the duck above. That same year, the company's name was changed to LEGO - a portmanteau of the Danish "leg godt" or play well. The story is as follows.
The story goes that Ole held a contest among his employees for a new name with the winner receiving a bottle of homemade wine. He chose his own entry and apparently got to drink his own wine.
Unknown to Ole at the time, lego in latin roughly translates to "I study" or "I put together".
In 1947, Lego, Ole, and his son Godtfred purchased the first plastic injection molding machine in Denmark. On this machine they would produce their first set of interlocking plastic bricks. This first generation of bricks was copied from / inspired by a British invention.
By 1955, Godtfred came up with the the first in a line of Lego "System of Play" sets which focused around a single town / village scene. There's Godtfred in the police costume with his son Kjeld, daughter Gunhild, and their cousin Jorgen.
In 1958, Godtfred invented the modern Lego brick, the "tube and stud" design that we have all come to know and love.
This simple design change dramatically increased the number of combinations in which the bricks could be assembled. The image below is one of the first boxes for the new bricks and features Godtfred's children.
The snazzy bow-tie wearing boy on the right is Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, CEO of Lego from 1979-2004. In 2007 he was the richest man in Denmark, with an estimated net worth of $3.3B US.
Special thanks to the following sources:
- codex99, a graphic design blog, provided the first quote, many of the images, and much of the info for this post. It's a great blog.
- I snagged those excellent Lego "blueprints" from squidoo's great history of Lego
At once a nobelman, scientist, astronomer, noseless dueling mathetician, and extravagant party planner, Tycho Brahe's obscenely accurate - in a world that was yet to see the telescope - astronomical observations provided Johannes Kepler with the data he would need to construct his laws of planetary motion.
Brahe was born in Skåne, which is now part of Sweden. This was part of Denmark during Brahe's life and thus, the Danes claim him. He was born to a high ranking Danish noble family and was later kidnapped by a wealthy uncle who would send the young Tycho to study to become a lawyer. Oh the fun of 16th century nobility!
When he was 13, Tycho witnessed a solar eclipse, learned that they could be predicted, and was hooked on astronomy for life. When he was 20, he had a duel over a mathematical formula (!) and lost part of / most of his nose. Being a man of wealth and taste, he fashioned a prosthesis out of - what people at the time claimed - gold. It was more than likely brass.
He spent the rest of his life amassing astonishing wealth, building larger, more accurate, and more expensive observation equipment, and partying like it was 1599. He even had a tamed elk that would accompany him to parties. He built a massive observatory on the island of Hven, Uranienborg.
Tycho essentially enslaved the people of Hven, forcing them to build and operate and the observatory. They were not allowed to leave the island without either his or the King of Denmark's consent. In Tycho's defense he probably wasn't any worse than other nobility of the time. It is estimated that at one point his wealth was equal to that of 1% of the entire Danish kingdom.
Brahe may be one of the last great astronomer / astrologers. His work bridges the gap between pre-telescope and telescope as well as mysticism and science in astronomy.
Today, the planetarium in Copenhagen bears his name, as well as craters on the moon and Mars.
To read more, check out any / all of these sources.
